Owl of Darkness (1942) by Max Afford

Owl of Darkness (1942), alternatively published as Fly by Night, is the fourth and penultimate novel in the Jeffrey Blackburn series by Australian playwright and mystery writer, Malcolm Afford – who wrote under the thinly veiled penname "Max Afford." This fourth outing for Jeffrey Blackburn and Chief Inspector Read differs from their previous cases in which they tackled the locked room slaying of a High Court judge (Blood On His Hands, 1936), a seemingly impossible murder staged at a BBC radio studio (The Dead Are Blind, 1937) and strange stabbings at an ancient stone chapel (Death's Mannikins, 1937). Owl of Darkness is a fairly conventional country house mystery, except that the country house of this detective story is being invaded by a pulp-style comic book villain.

Over a two-month period, a character going by the name of "The Owl" exploded into the newspaper headlines following a series of daring robberies. It's not merely the crimes or the "fantastic sobriquet" of The Owl that captured the imagination of both the public and every crime reporter in Britain.

The Owl is not your ordinary housebreaker, but a fully costumed, caped and masked arch-criminal wearing "the wings and false face of an owl" with "two pale, lidless eyes" blazing "above the cruel hooked beak of a nose" – who "could seemingly come and go at will." His arrival is preceded by the hooting of an owl and always leaves behind his calling card reading, "Fly by Night." The Owl's first claim of fame was an attempt to blow up the strong room of a well-known bank to get to a small fortune in bonds. However, the master thief succeeded in stealing Sir Charles Mortlake's famous Cellini Cup from his private museum and grabbed headlines when the Duchess of Doone's had a diamond "snatched from her throat as she sat in her darkened box at Covent Garden." The Owl's latest exploit opened Owl of Darkness as Lady Evelyn Harnett had a valuable necklace stolen after a house party and was nearly caught, but escaped by diving through a window ("...flew through that window... like a bird!").

Chief Inspector Read has everyone breathing down his neck and not amused when Blackburn finally decides to show up, but this reader was amused when Read sat Blackburn down to read him the editorials criticizing his performance ("I don't see you smiling, Mr. Blackburn"). A fun scene followed by the arrival of Miss Elizabeth "Betty" Blaire, "the newspaper woman connected with that murder at the B.B.C.," who has a possible lead on the robberies. Her brother, Edward, is a chemist and researcher who received a generous offer from Sir Anthony Atherton-Wayne to develop an anti-toxic gas. Edward was set up in a cottage on the grounds of Sir Anthony's home, Rookwood Towers, in the village of Tilling. During his experiments, Edward accidentally discovered "a perfect foolproof substitute for petrol" at about one-twentieth its price. Edward wants to sell the formula as his agreement with Sir Anthony is for the development of an anti-toxic gas. Not a petrol replacement. Elizabeth brought along her fiance, Robert Ashton, who's Sir Anthony's private secretary and confirms her story.

So the news of the formula attracts the attention of certain individuals. One shady individual who got wind of the new invention is The Owl and has been sending his visiting cards to Edward with a very clear warning. Give up the formula or die. The Owl has given Edward two more days coinciding with his birthday party. A birthday party extended into a tense, nearly two week siege of Rookwood Towers during which The Owl has a run of the place. And an increasingly harassed Reads insists on keeping everyone at the scene. More on that in a moment. Something else needs to be addressed first.

The Owl is not the only person coming to Rookwood Towers with the intention to get their hands on the formula, legally or otherwise. There's an American representative of an oil company, Charles Todhunter, but the other party bidding against Sir Anthony and Todhunter needs some explaining as it's bound to confuse history savvy readers. Dr. Heinrich Hautmann is a foreign service officer, working for the German Minister of War, who came with his daughter, Elsa, to purchase the petrol formula – which would have been treason in 1942. Just talking business without selling the formula to the German representatives would have been considered treasonous. I found that odd for a mystery published several years deep into World War II. A quick search revealed Owl by Darkness is a novelization of the radio-serial Fly by Night broadcast on Australian radio from April 14 to July 21, 1937. So the story takes place before WWII and explains other apparent irregularities like no mention of the war or Read casually suggesting to someone they take a holiday on the Continent (where, Portugal?). But it could have been stated clearer the story takes place before 1939 to prevent confusion. For example, the chapters all start with the date/day and it needed was adding the year to the date or simply change the nationality of the Hautmanns. Just make them Dutch (Herman Houtman).

Interestingly, the wikipedia page of the radio-serial has a quote from a contemporary critic calling Fly by Night "swift and forceful" with every other minute a new twist, turn of events or surprising developments. Afford carried this successfully over to the fast-paced novelization which dumps a whole bag of genre tropes out over the story. Some incredibly time-worn, but all put to good and effective use. There are one or two quasi-impossible situations like a kidnapping from a locked, top floor bedroom, but not substantial enough to use the "locked room mysteries" tag on this review. Surprisingly, I really enjoyed how Afford made use of the rabbit warren of secret passageways, hidden doors and underground burial vaults perfectly suited for exploration, shenanigans and staging a murder or two. Strange, disfigured hands open hidden panels to grab at people and not everyone might who they claim to be or willing to tell everything they know. Not to mention a dash of blackmail, a disappearing letter, romance and the dawning realization The Owl could possibly be a resident or guest of Rookwood Towers.

Blackburn himself observes it "smacked too much of melodrama," but the whole case is melodrama personified with its eccentric young inventor, revolutionary formula and a masked arch-criminal running around the place – unimpeded by the heavy police presence. So, as far as the plot-ingredients and tropes are concerned, Owl of Darkness is not terribly original outside of the main plot-thread of the titular criminal. That being said, it's impressive Afford carted out all these old, hoary tropes and squeezed a relentlessly amusing country house caper out of them. Unironically throwing a costumed super villain from the pulps and comics into the mix is just ballsy. A character so absurd in a 1940s Golden Age mystery, it normally would have reduced any other mystery to ranks of a genre curiosity. Afford got away with it and written something a little more than a genre curiosity. Owl of Darkness could even been a minor classic had the main plot-thread, namely the identity and motives of The Owl, not been one of the most telegraphed solutions I've come across in a classic mystery novel.

I wish it was just me being in rare form as an armchair detective as my razor sharp mind cut through the intricate design of the plot, like a katana through silk, but Afford banks on (SPOILER/ROT13) gur ernqre orvat anvir naq arire nfxvat gur boivbhf dhrfgvba: ubj yrtvg vf guvf fhccbfrq eribyhgvbanel sbezhyn sbe n purnc, rnfvyl cebqhprq fhofgvghgr sbe beqvanel crgeby. Bapr lbh xabj jurer, be engure gb jubz, gb ybbx, gur cybg cenpgvpnyyl haeniryf vgfrys. I was also suspicious (ROT13) Rqjneq jnf qrcvpgrq fbzrjung bjyvfu jvgu oyvaxvat rlrf oruvaq guvpx yrafrq fcrpgnpyrf naq fhfcrpgrq ur pubfr gur bjy crefban gb vapbecbengr uvf tynffrf vagb gur pbfghzr, but I obviously gave that aspect too much thought.

So not the best or most challenging detective novel written during the WWII years, but certainly one of the most striking country house mysteries of the Golden Age. More importantly, it's never boring as the characters and plot developments ensure there's never a dull moment between chapters. I think detective fans with a soft spot for the gentlemen thieves and colorful criminals of the rogue branch of the genre will get the most out of this, especially fans of the Kaito KID capers from Gosho Aoyama's Case Closed series. It's not everyday you such a character let loose in a vintage country house mystery.

Man of Steel: "The Super-Key to Fort Superman" (1958) by Jerry Coleman

So, as you've probably noticed, I've been on a locked room mystery bender since February and you can blame that on the publication of Brian Skupin's Locked Room Murders: Supplement (2019) coinciding with the holidays, which significantly increased the size of my wishlist and to-be-read pile – glutted with more impossible crime stories than usual. I'm now almost done with trimming down my stack of newly acquired locked room and impossible crime novels. You can expect a little more variety to return by the end of the month.

One of the more peculiar titles listed in Skupin's Locked Room Murders: Supplement is entry 2215, "The Super-Key of Fort Superman," written by Jerry Coleman and published in Action Comics, #241, 1958. A 12-page comic book story in which Superman has to find out who, and how, someone gained access to the "locked and impenetrable" Fortress of Solitude.

The Fortress of Solitude is hidden "deep in the core of a mountainside" in "the desolate arctic waste" with the only entrance being a massive door, "sheltered from view by jutting rocks," which can only be opened with "a super-key that weighs tons" – a ponderous key only Superman can lift. There's no one on Earth who can get through "the solid rock out of which it is hewn." A quiet, solitary place where he "conducts incredible experiments, keeps strange trophies and pursues astounding hobbies." Sound like the next best thing to a Batcave, but the Fortress of Solitude is more like the lair of very dedicated stalker or serial killer.

Superman has rooms, or shrines, dedicated to his friends, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen and Batman, complete with wax dummy replicas, mementos and specially made gifts.

A personally strung-together rope of pearls for Lois, a handmade sports car for Jimmy and a robot-detective for Batman, but they'll only receive these gifts if, not when, Superman dies. What a dick! Lois and Jimmy will probably have been slumbering in their graves for decades by the time he gets a wrinkle or gray hair! Why not give Batman that super advanced, robot-detective to fight crime now? Apparently, Superman is also an abusive animal hoarder with a private, inter-planetary zoo, hoarded from across the galaxies, crammed inside tiny cages – one panel showing several, large-sized alien animals in crate-sized cages. Well, at the very least he keeps the cages in a "locked chamber" and the floors aren't littered with rotting, half-cannibalized carcasses of former pets. So there's that, I suppose.

Anyway, one day, when Superman returns to the Fortress of Solitude, he discovers someone has entered the fortress and left a taunting message on the wall, "I can enter and leave at will! Who am I? How can I do it? I dare you to find out!" This happens another two times with a third message saying, "Kent is Superman." No one else, except Superman, could have lifted the giant key, moved the door or plunge through fifty feet of solid rock. These are the only ways in, or out, of the fortress.

Superman briefly considers some possible solutions. Such as one of his inter-planetary pets "concealing superhuman powers and intelligence" or "that strange apparatus made by Luthor," which can summon beings from the fourth dimension, but the solution unveils a legitimate locked room-trick cleverly modeled around an idea nearly as old as recorded history. And it worked surprisingly well! I expected someone had simply crawled through the large, gaping keyhole, but the solution turned out to be so much better and the identity of Superman's "most cunning opponent" was a nice touch to the who-and why of the plot. A victory for brains over brawn!

I read "The Super-Key to Fort Superman" on the assumption it would be nothing more than an amusing curiosity of the impossible crime story, but didn't expect I would end up liking it. But here we are. More than worth the five minutes it takes to read the story.

The Dark Pages

"So to summarize, we're basically dealing with three concentric locked-room mysteries."

- Special Agent Bay of the Library Police 

The last review that appeared on here, a rundown of Jack Iams' Death Draws the Line (1949), is still smoldering, and while it's already a contender for worst mystery read this year, the final portion of the book that included the Little Polly Pitcher comic-strip served as reminder that I still had to check out the work of an actual comic book artist – who drew and penned an attractive contribution to the locked room sub-genre.

Jason Shiga's Bookhunter (2007) is a modern-historical, set in Oakland, California, 1973, but the fact that the story's protagonist is a special agent, named Bay, attached to the Library Police clues you in that you're still in comic-book land. However, the plot is delightfully classically in tone with a cartoon-y hardboiled edge to it. The story is split up in four chapters, three of them detailing Bay's investigation, and the first introducing him when he's organizing a raid on a "freelance censor," who swiped several political books from the shelves, and has been locating by printing the same book he was targeting with radioactive dye! A confrontation with the self-appointed censor ends in the same way that got a lot of old Looney Tunes episodes canned or censored, "my bladder," before Bay moves on to a more cerebral problem.

The rare book room of the Oakland Public Library had an English bible on loan from The Library of Congress, which "was given to John Quincy Adams by a group of Mendi tribesmen in commemoration of his representation of them in the Amistad slave ship case," and by all accounts, appears to have been spirited away from the library.

There were no signs of forced entry on the outside doors and windows. The fire-escapes were alarmed, but they were last heard the year before. The safe were the book was kept overnight is unscratched. And finally, if the thief got past these obstacles, there is still the stop-point gate that will be triggered by a magnetic strip embedded in the book. Unfortunately, these security measures were to no avail and someone skipped out of there, unnoticed, with a valuable book.

I have to compliment Shiga for planting a false explanation in my mind with his art work that would've made the triple locked room far less complicated, and I think every seasoned mystery fan would latch on to that like it was an actual clue, but the eventual solution was more involved – relaying on the inner workings of a library and the building itself. In a way, the plotting reminded me of Herbert Resnicow and perhaps I should also mention Bill Pronzini's novella "Booktaker," collected in Casefile (1983), because the resemblance between the titles alone speaks for itself. They have completely different solutions though.

Anyway, I couldn't tell more without divulging too much of what is essentially a short story, even if the page count lies somewhere around the 140, and I recommend you read it for yourself – especially if you're a fan of locked rooms, comics and/or bibliophilic mysteries.

All in all, Bookhunter is an off-beat gem that deserves more attention from the mystery readers, combining art that fits the mood of the story with tongue-in-cheek action sequences and meticulous plotting, but let the reader be warned, there's a lot of technical talk on locks and bookbinders lore. Heck, there's enough of that stuff in this story that Julian "Bloody" Symons’ would probably have broken a thumb and forefinger, because he couldn’t slap "humdrum" label on this book fast enough. ;)

Cartoonist in a Tailspin

"Something didn't seem right. There was something about the whole set-up that smelled like someone else's hydrant."

- Ace Hart (Dog City, 1992-94) 

When the founder of Whitcomb Feature Syndicate, Big Bill Whitcomb, passed away the general-manager, Mark Wallis, inherited the responsibility to keep the business afloat that, in turn, keeps the vultures that were circling his sickbed in luxury and comfort. The only honor they give to their late benefactor is an annual diner to commemorate his birthday, which went well for nearly ten years, until their star cartoonist, Zeke Brock, made a drunken scene and the family has summoned Wallis before the next diner – and thus begins Jack Iams' Death Draws the Line (1949).

Zeke Brock is the creator of the Little Polly Pitcher comic strip and alcohol was his poison of choice, which seems to have done him, after Wallis planned to let him sleep for a couple of hours before towing him to the party. However, Wallis' becomes suspicious when Brock's will, leaving the copyright to his assistant, Mary Bradley, appears to be missing and ask a befriended D.A. for an autopsy – much to the chagrin of the acid-tongued and scandalized Widow Whitcomb. Of course, the fact that the autopsy showed that Brock was drowned (!) was not enough for Wallis to hold on to his job, because he neglected to put the interest of the company and the family on the first place.

Unfortunately, the snobbish, childish and decadent manners of the Whitcomb family pretty much sets the tone for the book and Iams appears to have been determined to drive home the fact that they're wicked people. Instead of following up on an interesting premise, Wallis has to endure the wrath of the Widow Whitcomb, tangle with her nymphomaniac of a daughter, Pamela, who's seen by Wallis approaching men in a dim-lit street, wrestle a gun from her brother Fenwick and knocks out with his former simpering assistant, Henry Parfield, who perhaps hopes to marry into the family. There are also sappy love feelings boiling between Wallis and Mary Bradley and a second murder, in which Wallis briefly becomes a suspect, to distract from the story. 

Crime Map on the backcover

It’s not like the murder of Zeke Brock is completely delegated to the background, but a lot of details were lost that could've made for a better story and not only in regards to the plot. Through out the story there are mentions of Avenge Polly Pitcher Clubs and movements popping up all over the country and you could have peppered the story with newspaper snippets (perhaps from one or two Rocky Rockwell's The Record?) of their activities. Yes. It would have still been padding, but it would've been more fun than what we actually got. There was also no background on the comic book industry of the 1940s. The murder of Brock also had some confusing points. None of the police involved seemed to give much thought on how the murderer entered the premise. Was I reading a locked room mystery or not? It was mentioned that Brock gave keys to practically every woman he ever slept with, but that was never looked into. Even after a suicide attempt takes that may be a botched attempt at murder takes place there. Somehow, someone got in... yes... that's a remarkable feat of deductive reasoning, detective. Why don't you go to a Coffee-and-Donut store and sit this one out.

The only point of genuine interest was the batch of missing Little Polly Pitcher comic strips and they were actually included in this book, drawn by Roy Crane, and they tell you what you probably suspected all along, but it’s a nifty gimmick nonetheless. I can only see this book of being of interest to scholars looking into the visual elements in detective stories. In short, Death Draws the Line was not just a step down from previous books I have read by Jack Iams, like The Body Missed the Boat (1947) and What Rhymes With Murder? (1950), but a suicide dive off a cliff and I think that is a wish we should respect and leave it at that.

Oh, and I know it's folly to post two reviews on the same day, so if this is the first time today that you decide to take a peek at this blog, you might also want to take a look at my rundown of the new Jonathan Creek special, The Clue of theSavant's Thumb (2013), which aired last night. The tone of that review is also a bit more on the positive and upbeat side. I hate